


On the Black Earth

by Laylah



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He couldn't find much. After Lior there was nothing left at all. A thorough search of his own possessions, in the weeks that followed, turned up a few long black hairs, which he has guarded carefully until now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Black Earth

_Some say an army of infantry or of cavalry  
or a fleet of ships is the most beautiful thing  
on the black earth. But I say it is whatever one loves.  
\- Sappho_

Her name is Frances Dee, and it has taken Archer six months to find her. He reviews in his head the contents of the file he assembled: she was an only child, and there have been alchemists in her family for at least three generations. Her father was remarkably talented, and she had formed an almost pathological attachment to him by the time of his death, two years ago. Since then, she has lived alone; she has no close relationships. She is loyal to the old regime. She has attempted the State Certification Exam twice in the last three years, and almost passed it both times. She asked no questions when Archer first laid out his painstakingly edited notes for her perusal. And her eyes lit with hunger when he laid a single crimson stone in her palm.

He knocks at her door now, adjusting his tie, his hat tucked under one arm. No reason to spread rumors about Miss Dee's military visitor, after all. The mere fact that she has a gentleman caller will be odd enough.

"Colonel," she says with a smile as she opens the door. "Come in. I'll put the kettle on."

Archer smiles. It's almost a shame. "Thank you," he says, offering a little polite bow before he steps over the threshold. The Dee family is as traditional as his own, if considerably less well-off after Frances's father's...dedication to his research.

She's probably using her alchemy in the kitchen, because it's not long at all that Archer waits in the parlor before she returns with the tea and cakes. She's a plain woman, already gray around the temples, unremarkable in every way but one. Archer smiles warmly as she pours. "Thank you, Miss Dee. You're looking well."

"Frances, please," she says, blushing faintly. Her hand trembles as she sets down the pot. "After all, this is quite a valuable secret that you've entrusted to me."

Archer nods, reaching for his cup. He takes neither milk nor sugar. "I have every confidence in your skills, Frances. And no doubt that this experiment will be profitable for both of us."

"You know this would be the most complicated thing I've ever attempted," Dee says, resting one hand on the sheaf of notes that Archer provided at their last meeting. "More talented alchemists than I have failed it. This is the great impossibility."

"I've seen your exam results," Archer says, sipping his tea deliberately, watching Dee nibble, mouse-like, at an anise cake. "You have the theoretical knowledge to do this." And, just as importantly, the theoretical _ignorance_ to attempt it. The examiner who marked her second written test noted how dangerous her naivete could be. "And now, because of the amplifier, you should also have the practical power to accomplish what no-one before you has managed." He smiles. "How have you found the sample I provided?"

"It's -- it's amazing," she admits. "I've -- there are things I've never been able to do before that are _simple_ to accomplish with that stone...." She trails off. "Why aren't these more widely available?"

"They are...expensive, and complicated, to produce," Archer says. "The only large-scale application of the amplification stone was at the end of the Ishvar war. Since then, we have attempted to rebuild our depleted supply, but some of the necessary metals are not only rare but difficult to manipulate. Add to that the fact that our leading specialist passed away last year, and the new parliament," he nods to acknowledge her little moue of distaste, "is hesitant to continue funding the program."

Dee sniffs, frowning. "Surely they don't expect progress to come easily," she says. "If there's one thing that unites every major breakthrough in alchemical history --"

"Exactly," Archer breaks in smoothly. "Which is why I believe that now is an excellent time to perform this experiment. If we can demonstrate that the amplifiers make possible things which have never before been achieved, we will prove without a doubt that they are worth the expense." He sets his cup down with a gentle clink in its saucer. "And I'm certain that with a success of this magnitude on your curriculum vitae, the new committee could not but certify you."

Dee swallows, suppressing the naked longing on her face far too late. "It...Father would have been so proud," she murmurs.

"He still could be," Archer says. He has her. This merely cements his position further. "There's nothing to prevent you from performing the transmutation a second time, once you have helped me with what I need. I'll provide additional amplifiers as required."

For a moment he's afraid she's going to burst into tears. Certainly her eyes shine wetly enough, and her shoulders shake with emotion. "God bless you, Colonel," she says, reaching out. He lets her take his hand. "God bless you."

* * *

They set the date for the following week. Archer arranges to take Friday off, so he'll have three days to acclimate his new charge. Under the new regime, he feels no guilt for shirking his duties this much. He packs a bag with some of Kimberly's old clothes, more of the red stones he salvaged from the ruins of the Fifth Laboratory, and some food, just in case. Even his own notes have substantial gaps in them, though they are more complete than the copies he gave Dee. There are so many things nobody has ever recorded about the needs and habits of homunculi.

Excitement gives an almost girlish animation to Dee's features. Archer can see how she could have been pretty once. "Everything is ready?" he asks.

"This way," she says, unlocking a door and gesturing for him to precede her down a narrow set of stairs. He hears her throw the bolt before she descends, and the forethought pleases him. In case this works too well, he'll want to contain the result.

Her workspace is immaculate and well-lit, the complex array that he provided drawn in red chalk on the floor. A basin in the center holds the raw materials, the unassuming mixture of elements -- Archer has to marvel at the science that can shape that raw clay and animate it, make it move and speak and mimic its creator.

"You have the...personal information?" Dee asks, standing beside him. Archer starts; she moved so silently.

"I do," he says. He withdraws an envelope from his pocket and steps forward, careful to avoid the chalk lines. This must be _perfect_.

He couldn't find much. After Lior -- after the disaster from which he was spared only by the Fullmetal Alchemist's quick response -- there was nothing left at all. A thorough search of his own possessions, in the weeks that followed, turned up a few long black hairs, which he has guarded carefully until now. They will have to be enough.

"There," he says softly, letting them drift down to rest atop the pile. "Let's see you."

He steps back from the basin, retreating to the corner of the room to observe. He gives Dee a tight little smile, wishing he could quell his jangling nerves. "When you're ready, Frances."

She nods, swallowing hard, and steps forward to kneel by the circle. The red stone glitters in a ring on her left hand. No non-alchemist in recorded history has ever witnessed this, Archer realizes. He wishes he had brought a notebook to record his thoughts on the process.

Dee takes a deep breath, and closes her eyes. For six excruciating heartbeats, nothing happens. Then a warm yellow light begins to glow in the lines of the array, growing brighter, pulsing orange, then crimson. Archer stares at the center of the circle, holding his breath. Surely it can't be a mere trick of the light that makes the matter in the basin seem to twist and writhe.

Dee rises up on her knees, eyes still closed, reaching forward as if pulled. Archer reaches for his gun reflexively, then stops himself. All his work will be for naught if he stops this now.

Cold air washes through the room as white light flares in the center of the circle -- and Archer is nearly overcome with a crawling, primitive terror, with the sense of a power so great and terrible that it's beyond any hope of understanding. His knees give out, and he falls, fighting nausea. The array flickers wildly, colors shifting without pause -- and then Dee begins to scream, staring at something Archer cannot see as her outstretched hands disintegrate into the light.

The power evaporates as abruptly as the closing of a door, leaving behind a cloud of sulfur-smelling smoke. Archer clutches his bag and crawls forward, ignoring the sounds Dee makes as she bleeds on the ruined array.

He knew it would be ill-formed, but Archer still recoils when the smoke clears enough for him to see it: twisted limbs jutting from a withered torso, pulsing organs exposed to the air. But it's conscious, sentient enough to respond to him, to open its mouth and make a pitiful gurgling sound when its one working eye fixes on him.

"Sshh," Archer says, reaching out to stroke its swollen cheek. "I know you must be hurting. But I have what you need. I'll make you better."

His hands shake as he opens his bag, fumbling for the little wrapped packet of stones. He has no idea how much it will take to make his homunculus assume a human shape -- another damnable gap in the notes he's assembled. He's brought more than half his supply, just in case.

"Here," he says, pressing one of the smaller stones to the creature's deformed mouth. "This will help you."

Its flesh quivers as it swallows the stone, and then its mouth opens again with a wordless sound of need. Archer makes himself smile and meet that inhuman eye, makes himself reach out to brush a blood-sticky lock of hair off its forehead. If it remembers its first moments, he wants it to remember his kindness.

By the third stone, it's clear that the treatment is working: the worst distortions in its limbs are smoothing out, and it can open its other eye. "Very good," Archer tells it. "You're going to be incredible."

Something brushes his leg, and he starts, looking up in alarm. It's Dee, white with shock and blood loss, holding up the ruined stumps of her arms. "Help me," she pleads. "Oh god, help me." Whatever happened to her has cauterized the wounds, but imperfectly, and dark blood oozes slowly from the resulting horror.

"I'm sorry, Frances," Archer says quietly. "And thank you."

He shoots her between the eyes.

It takes another hour and two dozen more red stones for Archer to complete his homunculus, to produce the lean, muscular limbs and long-fingered hands, the prominent hipbones and sharp-featured face that he remembers.

Its first words are, "What happened to me?"

"You've just been born," Archer says, smoothing the worst of the tangles from its hair, working free the clots of blood. "Do you remember anything before that?"

A frown creases its brow. "Should I?" it asks. Good; it remembers enough to know why that's a strange question.

"In ordinary circumstances, no." Archer smiles. "But these are extraordinary circumstances." He wets his lips nervously. "Do you remember Lieutenant Colonel Zolf J. Kimberly?"

The homunculus's eyes snap open, pupils narrowing to bare slits, its breathing fast and shallow. It reaches up with one hand, clawing at its chest in a panic. "I thought -- I thought I would die."

Archer reaches out and laces his fingers with the homunculus's. "That...was accurate. You're a homunculus."

It shivers, clutching tight to his hand, staring vacantly as it trembles with some overwhelming sensation. The return of Kimberly's memories, perhaps. "You," it says at last, meeting his eyes again. "I know your face, but not your name."

"Frank Archer," he says. He strokes the inside of its wrist with his thumb. "I worked with Kimberly."

"And...other things," the homunculus says. "I remember them. How you looked...." It reaches out, left-handed like Kimberly was, to touch him.

Halfway there, it stops, staring at its own hand. For a few seconds it seems to be struggling to contain itself. Then it breaks into helpless, hysterical laughter, staring at the oroborous marked on the back of its left hand.


End file.
